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lot of
people.”
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
    Rachel walked into the Santa Rosa
Beach Fire Marshal’s office at eight o’clock sharp. She told the
receptionist Jeff Stanton was expecting her.
    The receptionist replied warmly, “Of
course. Just take this hallway down to the end. He is the last
office on the left.”
    As Rachel walked down the hallway, she
couldn’t help but notice how nice the offices were. She expected
cold, drab décor of other government offices she had visited.
Gunmetal gray desks with beat- up file cabinets crossed her mind.
Instead she saw solid oak desks with pictures of families in nice
frames. The walls were adorned with certificates of achievements
and degrees.
    She got to Investigator Jeff Stanton’s
office and the door was ajar. She knocked twice and poked her head
around the door. The first thing that struck her about Jeff was he
looked like Will Ferrell. Curly dark hair with blue eyes a little
too close to his nose.
    “ Hi. You must be Rachel
Scott,” Jeff said as he stood up from his desk and shook her hand.
“Please have a seat.”
    “ You have a very nice
office.”
    “ Thank you. I inherited
most of this from the last investigator. I’ve only been here about
six months. Transferred from the Tallahassee office.” Jeff got down
to the business at hand. “So you want to help with Samantha Collins
case?”
    “ Yes, I was contacted by
the family to see if I could help find her.” Rachel said. “Can you
tell me where you are on the investigation?”
    “ Instead of telling you,
why don’t I show you? We can take a ride over to the site and then
I’ll tell you what we got so far.”
     
    ***
     
    As they drove up to the
warehouse, Rachel saw a large wooden sign with Campbell’s Farmer’s
Market in big red letters. Underneath, it read Family Owned and Operated For Over Fifty
Years . Jagged pieces of the roof were
charred and the smell of smoke still hung in the air. Two yellow
forklifts and a bulldozer were parked along the edge of the parking
lot.
    “ You wouldn’t know it, but
we have a lot of rural farms within a hundred miles of the beach.
Most of them contract with Campbell’s to sell their produce and
goods. It’s really busy during tourist season and weekends. Been
around for a long time,” Jeff said. “The front of the market has
stalls vendors can lease. The back of the warehouse has two offices
and a large storage area.”
    “ It’s so sad to see it
burned down.”
    As they got out and looked around,
Jeff said, “It took over twenty firefighters and five hours to put
out the fire. The fire was fueled by various materials stored in
the warehouse. Four stations responded to the call.”
    “ How large is the
warehouse?”
    “ It’s approximately
twenty-five thousand square feet and includes the offices and
storage space.”
    “ This is the main
entrance?” Rachel asked pointing to the door.
    “ Yes. Sam was last seen
here when they pulled out the owner’s son. We believe she somehow
made it to the rear entrance before disappearing.” Jeff shook his
head. “Strange. We have no idea what happened to her.”
    “ Was any of her gear
found?” Rachel asked.
    “ Just her helmet was found
in the rear parking lot. It’s like she vanished into thin
air.”
    That was how most people responded to
her questions about missing loved ones. ‘They just vanished into
thin air’ was a common response.
    Rachel followed Jeff around to the
back of the warehouse. “Have you searched the woods here?” Rachel
pointed to the large empty lot behind the warehouse, thick with
trees and underbrush.
    “ The police department came
out Sunday with a couple of their search and rescue dogs, but they
didn’t turn up anything.”
    “ Have you talked with any
of the neighbors?” Rachel noted the warehouse had a residence to
the west, an empty lot to the east, and a convenience store across
the street.
    “ We interviewed the
neighbors next door and the clerk who was on duty at